Wednesday, March 11, 2009

It took less than 48 hours for Championship Week to produce its first bid-stealer. Cleveland State, which lost two heart-breaking games to Butler during the regular season, got its revenge in the best way possible on Tuesday night, beating the Bulldogs 57-54 in a rowdy Hinkle Fieldhouse to win the Horizon's automatic bid. The third-seeded Vikings, who now have two Top 50 wins on their resume, are a 12 seed in today's bracket. They bumped St. Mary's from a 13 seed to the Last Four Out list and, more importantly, made it just a little bit harder for the rest of the teams on the bubble to get an at-large. Butler, meanwhile, fell from a 6 seed to the bottom of the 8 line as a result of their loss.

In the other two championship games Tuesday night, the top seeds prevailed. North Dakota State, in its first year of eligibility, won the Summit's automatic bid by beating Oakland, and Western Kentucky held off South Alabama to win the Sun Belt tourney for the second straight year. The only other small conference result of note was Weber's State's loss in the Big Sky semis to sixth-seeded and (under-.500) Montana State. The Wildcats, who lost just one conference game all season, were replaced in the bracket by Portland State, who beat Idaho State in the other semifinal. Portland State and Montana State face off for the Big Sky automatic tonight in Ogden, Utah. The Northeast Conference champion will also be decided tonight, as top-seeded Robert Morris, who hasn't been to the tournament since 1992, takes on defending champion Mount St. Mary's.

Today also marks the start of the Big XII, Pac-10, A-10, MWC, C-USA, Big West, MEAC, and SWAC tournaments. Several bubble teams are in action, including Oklahoma State (vs. Iowa State) and Texas A&M (vs. Texas Tech) in the Big XII tourney, and Providence (vs. "red-hot" DePaul) in the Big East tourney.

57 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I like the bracket and Cleveland St. stealing a bid my only question was why Creighton beat out Minnesota for a bid. Minnesota's resume includes a SOS of 38 and an RPI of 40. They've beat Louisville, Illinois, and Ohio St. The big 10 is decent at best but all Creighton has going is a win against Dayton and a phony New Mexico team. Why does creighton deserve the bid after being blown out in the Semi's?

Not only was Creighton blown out in the Semi's, they barely made it out of the Quarter's. Minnesota definitely needs to be in over Creighton. On a side note, big props to North Dakota State on a great win last night.

Well, their respective RPIs are comparable, and the SOS doesn't seem to matter too much, since that's taken into account in the RPI. Minnesota has a 5-7 top 50 mark, to Creightons 2-2. Neither one is steller, but I'd say Minnesota has more do to more chances. Especially if you extend to top 100: 8-9 for Gophers, 10-5 for Jays. I'd say it's not crazy to pick the Jays over the Gophers.

Minnesota's resume includes a SOS of 38 and an RPI of 40. They've beat Louisville, Illinois, and Ohio St. The big 10 is decent at best but all Creighton has going is a win against Dayton and a phony New Mexico team. Why does creighton deserve the bid after being blown out in the Semi's?

Minnesota's resume will also include another loss, which you have to take into consideration

Actually, their second top 50 win is Illinois State, New Mexico is not in the top 50.

And after looking again, I think I have to agree with you. Creighteon has two sub-100 losses, and Minnesota has none. Plus five top 50 wins is hard to ignore.

Now of course, the Bubble isn't limited to these two teams. I'd like to point out that Creighton is probably more simmiliar to LSU than Minnesota! Both are 10-5 against top 100, and LSU has a sub-100 loss.

Creighton also won 11 in a row before that blowout, including winning a game against Illinois State. And their RPI is higher than Minnesota's as we speak. What has Minnesota done lately? They went 5-7 over their last 12. They had a chance to virtually lock up a bid at home against Michigan and lost. They don't really have much argument if they don't get in.

Now of course, the Bubble isn't limited to these two teams. I'd like to point out that Creighton is probably more simmiliar to LSU than Minnesota! Both are 10-5 against top 100, and LSU has a sub-100 loss.Are they also kind of like UNC? Or Uconn? Or louisville? LSU is so far out of creightons level its not funny, these mid major teams would be 5-13 in the SEC, Big 10, or pac 10, or 2-14/2-16 in the ACC-Big east... LSU was 13-3 inthe SEC, with 12 straight wins in the middle, they only have 6 losses, and Xavier, Tamu, utah and auburn, 4 of 6, will likely be in the tournament, Creighton, on the other hand, lost 4 games in the MVC, including a 22 point loss to illinois state, a double digit loss to drake, a double digit loss to wichita state, plus losses to ARKANSAS LITTLE ROCK and nebraska... Come on... Creighton is good, but stop it.

If Minnesota beats Northwestern on Thursday then they will be in over Creighton. The Bluejays are barely hanging on to their spot in the bracket at this point but we think they are in the best shape out of fellow mid-major's who have gone down this week (St. Mary's and Davidson). Overall the Bluejays don't have anything in their resume which is too terribly impressive but they still have a solid profile and warrant serious consideration for an at-large bid. They have some solid wins OOC and did split the regular season title in the MVC. Their conference losses came early on and they finished very strong. The semi loss itself to Illinois State isn't bad, but they fact that it was by 24 points may be killer and if the Bluejays don't get a bid that will be a big reason. At this point Creighton just needs to hope for bubble teams to lose, St. Mary's to not play well against Eastern Washington, and Dayton and New Mexico to do well to make those wins look better.

If Maryland wins their next two games they will be in. The same can likely be said for Miami and Virginia Tech.

Michigan won't be done with a loss tomorrow but it would make for a long and painful weekend. A win over Iowa would lock things up for the Wolverines regardless of what other bubble or Big Ten teams do.

I like Creighton as a tournament team given historical precedent. Regular season champs of top 10 conferences have consistently been given a boost over their straight RPI #s. See in the past Wyoming (2002), Air Force (2004), and UTEP (2004). And yes, they have OOC wins over Dayton, who is clearly in and New Mexico, who was one of three champs of the MWC.

wow St Johns 10 points at halftime, where is all the Big East fans at?? Even PSU at Illinois had more than 10 points at halftime, Big East must be awful, same is said about the Big 10 when they have low scoring games.

I wonder if people realize this is not the same Iowa team from earlier in the Big Ten season. They moved Jake Kelly, who is 6'6", to point guard, and Cyrus Tate is starting to come around from his injuries.

How many teams can guard a 6'6" point guard? Especially one who is as good a shooter as Jake Kelly? Its not a surprise that one of the biggest things affecting Iowa earlier in the year was turnovers, and that has dramatically decreased.

That being said, Iowa still hasn't proven they can win road games, and perimeter teams don't tend to do very well at Conseco Fieldhouse. Also, Iowa has an EXTREMELY short bench, so Michigan should try to get them in foul trouble. Then again that might not be very easy if the Big Ten refs continue to call the game like its football on hardwood.

Thats a great point about Iowa, they are not a bad team, people think they are, but they aren't. Tate is back from a high ankle sprain, Kelly is a great PG, Bawinkle can shoot along with Gatens, Also Jeff Peterson is out, but may play tomorrow. Anthony Tucker was the teams leading scorer out of conference and they lost him for the year due to a off court problem.

There also is no argument that if Creighton doesn't get in, they don't have much to complain about. That said, why is there constantly love for middling "power" conference teams that prove over and over again that the only thing they can do against a tough schedule is lose against it? Yet they still get a lot of love this time of year. And it's a growing/worsening trend. Mid-major at larges have been dwindling pretty seriously the past few years. Who gets those spots? Teams that went .500 or less in their "tough" conferences. It's a joke.

Very tough question Jayz. That would be a very tough call and a lot would depend on how well each team played in their losses. Assuming both teams lost in close games then we would have to give a very slight edge to Penn State. It's really a question about what the committee will value more. Will the fact that Penn State finished a game ahead in conference and also went farther in the conference tourney outweigh the fact that they did nothing OOC, while Michigan picked up some big wins.

We are looking to get a printable bracket up later this evening and at the latest we will have it up by tomorrow.

The bracket will be up sometime tonight. If Syracuse beats UConn, they would probably jump up to the middle of the 4 line. We don't think the Orange are a Final Four-caliber team necessarily, but they've shown an ability to beat good teams away from home this year (Kansas, Memphis, Florida, Marquette). They should get to the Sweet 16, and maybe get as far as the Elite Eight.

I agree with the posters regarding Iowa. What's interesting as well is that each big conference seems to have a team or two at the bottom of the barrel that is fully capable of beating all but the most elite teams. In the P10, every team but Oregon is live. In the Big 12, I'd include Baylor as a viable contender. The SEC is vacant of anything resembling a dominant team, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Georgia-like run for one of the middling teams (Vandy/Bama/Miss St) or even the weak teams (Arkansas/Georgia). NC State could contend in the ACC, as well. How all this will affect the overall formation of the bracket, is unclear...

One team I feel you and others have underrated is New Mexico. Looking at their resume, 21-10 with wins against BYU, Utah, SD State and UNLV...its more impressive to em than some of your other 12 seeds..S Carolina has beaten 1 team that might make the tournament (Florida) and kentucky twice...big whoop. Creighton has beaten Il State, Dayton, and yes N Mex but in the first game of the year at home. And Siena's main claim is 2-1 vs Niagara. I think NMex looks more like a 10 or 11 seed

wow St Johns 10 points at halftime, where is all the Big East fans at?? Even PSU at Illinois had more than 10 points at halftime, Big East must be awful, same is said about the Big 10 when they have low scoring games.

Im fairly certain that everyone here is aware of the fact that st johns is horrible without beating it to death, the problem with the Big 10 game was that penn st got a "good" win from beating a team in the top 25, and only mustered 38 points./

I'm not impressed with New Mexico at all. All their Top 50 wins were home games vs. other Mountain West teams. They beat the other top 5 mountain west teams at home, but lost to all of them on the road. Add to that some losses to bad teams in OOC and you're looking at an NIT team. Usually a mid major at large would distinguish themselves with some road wins but that doesn't seem to be the case with Steve Alford's Lobos.

We like New Mexico as the third team out of the MWC (for now at least), but we don't have them higher than a 12 seed for the reasons Anonymous mentioned. All of the Lobos' big wins in conference have come at home, and they don't have any big wins OOC (home or road) to speak of. They lost at Utah, at BYU, at UNLV, at SDSU, at Creighton, at Texas Tech, and on a neutral floor to VCU and Drake. Had hey won just two or three of games, they would be safely in the field and would be in the 8-10 range.

I don't know if Texas A&M is out now that they lost to Texas Tech (Although Steven Bardo just said on ESPN2 that he thinks they should be out), but giving up SIXTY points in the second half is just shameful!

A&M won't be out tomorrow, but their seed is going to take a hit. Don't forget, unlike the teams on the 11 line, the Aggies have a good OOC resume and a decent number of Top 50 wins (4). It sounds weird, considering they are both close to the bubble, but A&M should root hard for Arizona tomorrow against ASU. A win could move Arizona into the Top 50 of the RPI (they are 54 right now) and give A&M a fifth Top 50 win.

of course when comparing stats like this for the big east against the big ten remember most of the big east's games like this were against RPI top 30 (7 teams in the top 30) while most the big ten's were 30+

also i know providence has at least 4 wins againts the rpi top 75. pitt, syracuse and cincy twice.

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